Baudot Code

The baudot code was used extensively in telegraph systems and primarily used paper tape. It is a five bit code invented by the frenchman Emile Baudot in 1870.

The code uses five bits and therefore, allows 32 different characters. To accomodate all the letters of the alphabet, numerals and punctuation, two of the 32 combinations are used to select alternate character sets, the "letter set" (LTRS), and the "figure set" (FIGS). The FIGS character (11011) signals that the following code is to be interpreted as being in the FIGS set, until this is reset by the LTRS (11111) character.

The code only allows for a minimal character set. No lower case letters. Each character is preceeded by a start bit, and followed by a stop bit. It is an asynchronous code.

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